People often have a desire to supervise user activity (i.e., activities performed by a human) taking place on a particular computer. For instance, in a household environment, parents want to make sure their children are not exposed to potentially dangerous situations on the Internet, especially when they are not present to closely supervise their children. Specifically, parents often want to protect their children from unintentionally interacting with child molesters, viewing internet pornography, speaking to strangers, mentioning using drugs, visiting hate group web sites, gambling on-line and so forth. Unfortunately, filters and other preventive measures on the market today are often bypassed by computer savvy children, or are ineffective and deficient, leaving children vulnerable.
In an organizational environment, employers often have an inadequate understanding of what employees are doing on their computers, for example what sites they are visiting, how much time they are spending on particular sites, whether they are spending time on non-work related activities, such as games and internet surfing. In addition, current filters and preventive measures are circumvented by employees through the use of non-standard e-mail to avoid employer detection. For instance, some employees may use free mail sites or instant messaging sites that leave no permanent record of the content of their messages or activities on the employer's computer systems.
In a domestic relationship environment, a spouse or friend of an individual may suspect that the individual is cheating, using drugs, or engaging in some other types of negative behavior, and the individual may use a computer to perpetrate the suspected behavior. However, the individual may be using free mail sites, chat rooms, or instant messaging on the computer, making it difficult for their spouse or friend to assess the situation discreetly.
In law enforcement and counter terrorism environments, it is often very difficult to monitor communication taking place between suspected terrorists on a particular computer, even if law enforcement is able to eavesdrop on communications to and from the particular computer. Terrorists often use encryption software to encrypt their data, making it extremely difficult for government agencies to quickly comprehend the nature of the terrorists' communications while in transit.
These are just a few examples of the various problems associated with supervising, monitoring, and controlling the computer activity of a user today.